Despite the fact that Gaspara Stampa (1523?-1554) has been recognized as one of the greatest and most creative poets and musicians of the Italian Renaissance, scholarship on her work has been surprisingly scarce and uncoordinated. In recent years, critical attention towards her work has increased, but until now there have been no anthologies dedicated... more...

Most critics would rank Benito Perez Galdos second only to Cervantes among the great novelists of Spain. However, in spite of the esteem in which he is generally held, Galdos has been the subject of relatively few scholarly studies. Professor Pattison, by more...

The School for Husbands (L'École des maris) is a work by Molière (the stage name of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), a French playwright who is often considered to be one of Western literature's great masters of comedy. In a theatre in the Louvre and in the Palais-Royal, Molière found success among the Parisians with The School... more...

Under the pretense of defending an obscure treatise by a Catalan theologian, Sebond, Montaigne attacks the philosophers who attempt rational explanations of the universe and argues for a skeptical Christianity based squarely on faith rather than reason. The result is the Apology for Raymond Sebond, a classic of Counter-Reformation thought and a masterpiece... more...

?When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep. And when I am walking alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts are sometimes preoccupied elsewhere, the rest of the time I bring them back to the walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, and to me.? ? Montaigne In the year 1570, at the age of thirty-seven, Michel... more...

As this concluding volume of his moving and revealing memoirs begins, Elie Wiesel is forty years old, a writer of international repute. Determined to speak out more actively for both Holocaust survivors and the disenfranchised everywhere, he sets himself a challenge: "I will become militant. I will teach, share, bear witness. I will reveal and try... more...